Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

• Holistic accountability of the P&L for all owned stores in Korea. Leading the stores, retail back office and acting as a member of the Senior leadership team.
• Responsible for profitable and sustainable market share growth and to be the primary leader in driving all initiatives and strategies through the Branded Concept Stores, Flagships and Factory Outlets in Korea.
• Create and deliver the vision and strategy for all stores formats in Korea, and the Retail Back Office.
• Cultivate and develop talent and future leaders with an identified succession plan throughout the organization.
• Be passionate about people and inspire/motivate the organization to deliver internal talent for future store growth and promotional opportunities cross-functionally within Korea.
• Ensure channel sales, profitability, margin and operational objectives are met through an executed strategic business plan.
• Stay in close alignment with Global Retail direction, giving input to Market and Global on behalf of Korea and ensuring flawless execution at Country level.
• Build, operate and maximize the performance of Own Retail business and drive operation excellence (VM, Training, Store operations etc) for Retail & Mono stores to drive sustainable and profitable growth and deliver the best experience for the end consumer.  Drive strategic location plan and lead the negotiation with department stores for all Channels (Retail and Wholesale). 

Key Responsibilities:

• Design and implement the strategy for the consumer direct business throughout South Korea to grow the business and achieve a competitive advantage in the market.

• Lead and manage the full P&L for Retail.
• Drive the Retail 5 P’s : People , Product , Premises, Processes and Profit to continuously maximize profitability from the store portfolio whilst ensuring this covers the requirements for South Korea in conjunction with key stakeholders including the MD and Global.
• Oversee retail strategy development and ensure the development and implementation of best practice in Retail excellence.
• Manage the implementation of global Consumer Direct strategies while leveraging market industry knowledge and metrics to influence market-specific changes, adjustments and recommendations.
• Expand and share retail services such as training, store operations and Real estate & store development to mono partners to deliver consistent retail experience to consumers.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives both by direct management of people and by influencing at all levels within the company.
• At all times maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction through strategic partnering with Marketing and Sales Departments for adidas Brand.
• Continuously improve consumer service and in store experience in the view to maintain the highest brand equity across South Korea.
• Lead and inspire the retail field and retail back office (RBO) teams to meet or exceed commercial goals and KPI’s and build Brand equity.
• Develop and sustain a high level of trading and service culture and ensure Retail operating standards and policies are consistently implemented across all our retail stores.
• Drive and implement agreed Global retail processes and guidelines for field and RBO operations; feeding back Market needs to the Global for the ongoing development of global processes.
• Ensure robust buying and allocation processes in place to blend art and science to offer the latest and best ranges to our consumers, driving the highest margin and full price mix possible in our concept store business, whilst mitigating excess inventory via our Factory business to protect overall company profitability.
• Key Performance indicators (KPI’s): Traffic, Conversion, UPT, ATV, % channel contribution to be continuously monitored at store level and shared with respective teams.
• Manage and control operational expenses (stores and backoffice) in line with the Market retail budget.
• Ensure elaboration of a rolling ‘House of Retail’ by store, covering all retail marketing, visual merchandising and other activities and ensure implementation by operational coordination and close tracking.
• Ensure identification and improvement of best practices by own store format and compliance within the Market retail store portfolio.
• Develop and implement advanced components for enhancing the adidas retail business model (logistics, IT, reporting, staff deployment planning, training) with the respective functions.
• Ensure high employee engagement and performance at every level through effective motivation, coaching, training, and development of personnel in the team, both in the back office and in the field.
• Drive people engagement and employee relations with HR and managing union relationship as retail are majority population of adidas Korea employees.

Key Relationships:

• Global Sales team/ Global Golf team
• Retail, Business Development, Marketplace, and Category BU’s
• Market/Country Senior Management team
• Market/Country Teams: Brand adidas, eCom, Wholesale and Market Support Functions (Finance, HR, IT, SCM)
• Country Retail Back Office (RBO) team/ District Managers and Store Managers
• Labor union with HR

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities :

• Strong leadership skills, management and coaching skills and the ability to capitalize on and apply these skills, resulting in the growth and development of employees at all levels of the organization.
• High degree of commercial business and financial acumen.
• Deeply experienced in leading multi-cultural field and back office teams in an international, brand led retail environment.
• Excellent communication skills including impactful presentation skills, influencing and negotiating and change management.
• Understanding of Digital eco-systems and functionality without necessarily being a digital native.
• Advanced numeracy and literacy, with good IT skills. (Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Geographical mobility.
• Fluency in English. (local language as a plus)

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

• University degree in business (ideally with marketing and sales focus) or equivalent relevant experience.
• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in the retail and trade marketing Industry, ideally in apparel/fashion/shoes or FMCG, with an operational background and working across different countries.